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Jennifer

When a doctor tells you “you have cancer,” preserving your fertility is likely the last thing on your—or your doctor’s—mind. But given that treatment, whether radiation therapy or surgery, causes infertility in both women and men, it certainly should be top of mind for any cancer patient who wants to have children.

“Too many people are rightfully trying to cure the cancer immediately, but they may not also take into account that you can treat the cancer and preserve fertility” through freezing eggs or sperm pre-treatment, says Dr. Drew Tortoriello, medical director at the Sher Institutes for Reproductive Medicine. And while an egg-freezing cycle can cost upwards of $10,000, Dr. Tortoriello is on a mission to cut cancer patients a much-needed break—and to an almost hard-to-believe degree.

Six months ago, Dr. Tortoriello founded Fertility Rescue, a program available at Sher Institutes’ locations throughout the country, which will harvest and freeze the eggs or sperm of cancer patients for thousands of dollars less than what it would normally cost. Many of the services, such as pulling the eggs out and the anesthesiology, are completely free of charge, while others, like some drugs and storage, can cost. “Ideally, [a patient would pay] nothing, but it depends on the support of pharmaceutical companies at the local level,” says Lisa Stark, director of communications at Sher Institutes. Egg storage is free for the first two years, but after that it will cost patients $600 a year. There is no screening process to take part in the program, only a few requirements: the patient should be pre-surgery or treatment; in their reproductive years; and, for women, still ovulating. To date, about 50 people across the country have taken part, and Dr. Tortoriello says the only hurdle so far has been getting the word out.

Sound too good to be true? You’re not alone in your skepticism. Dr. Tortoriello admits he has many patients who “don’t really believe what I’m saying.”

Twenty-nine-year-old Carly Byrd, currently undergoing her third treatment for breast cancer, was one of them. After a series of setbacks, Byrd, of LaGrange, GA, says fate intervened. “My doctor told me about a fertility doctor in Columbus, GA. I contacted him and he was going to be out of the country and wouldn’t have time to retrieve my eggs before I started chemo,” says Byrd, who doesn’t have children. “Then he turned me on to a doctor in Atlanta, and when I called that doctor, it turned out the nurse that answered the phone used to work for the Sher Institute.” The nurse told her about Fertility Rescue, and later that day, Byrd had filled out an online consultation form and started making arrangements with a doctor in Dallas to have her eggs harvested.

“I’ll tell you the people and the program are completely genuine,” says Byrd, who chronicles her cancer journey on her blog, The Pink Gypsy. “Their intentions are whole-heartedly supportive and good.”

Since women are advised not to get pregnant for at least two years after they’ve been cancer-free, Dr. Tortoriello has not yet had the privilege to thaw any eggs for his patients. Still, he and the other doctors at the Sher Institute see the Fertility Rescue program as an unmet need, and hope to see it become “more of a universal finding than an isolated finding,” Tortoriello says.

“It’s a truly good thing to do for people, and we have the ability to do it, and we all agreed it would be wonderful thing for us to offer to patients facing the dual prospect of their own mortality from cancer and infertility, if they survive it,” he explains. “We basically decided we were going to do it essentially for free, from the very beginning of the process to the very end of the process, and we think that’s the only way to do it. “

AMG/Parade Digital

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